building a stylish home, one paycheck at a time

January 7, 2016January 14, 2016

tutorial: raised beds

I get so tired of working on the house, that any opportunity I get to take shortcuts, save myself a trip to the lumber yard, and save time (and energy!), I take it. We had some 12′ long 2×10″ boards lying around, and I needed some raised beds.

So I cut the boards all up at once and quickly drilled them all at one time, and I managed to assemble 8 raised beds in a couple of hours. And I didn’t have to go to the lumber yard for any more materials. Win, win!

I think I had a combo of bigger size and regular boards, and a couple of pressure treated boards in a bigger size. You can see the difference in the photos at the end of this post.

Materials

2×10″ board, the length depends upon how many beds you want

1×2″ board (or rip a 2×4″)

drill

outdoor or decking screws (at least 2.5 inches long)

skill saw

chop saw, if you don’t want to use a skill saw on the 1×2″ boards

Instructions

With the 2×10″ boards, I cut them down into 5′ lengths and 2′ lengths.

Then I chop sawed the 1×2″ boards into 10″ lengths – these will be the braces for the beds.

Drill two of the 10″ long 1×2″ boards onto one of the 2′ lengths of the 2×10″ boards. See the 3rd photo.

Then drill the 2′ lengths to the 5′ lengths into the 1×2″ braces to create a box.

I was doing this project by myself, so I used a completed box to hold up the loose board of the box I was working on while I was drilling.

We have great soil in our yard, so I didn’t bother putting bottoms on the boards. I did staple landscaping cloth, though, to try to deter rodents and weeds.